Mr. Arnold Cleaver: “I appear for the prisoner.”
Colonel Bidwell: “Very well; I consent to a remand. That is all.”
These gentlemen then departed. The police were in such a hurry to prefer the formal charge, they could not wait until the doctors should certify that I was in a fit state to be taken to the court in the ordinary way. The nurse then told me I must get up and dress. I prayed that my children might be sent for to bid me good-by—but I was peremptorily refused. I begged to gather together some necessary personal apparel, only to meet with another refusal. I was hurried away with such unseemly haste, that even my hand-bag with my toilet articles was left behind. My mother implored to be allowed to say good-by, but was denied. She had gone up to her bedroom, so she tells me, which looked out on the front, to try and see my face as they put me in the carriage, when they turned the key and locked her in. After I had gone a policeman unlocked the door.
THE LATE DR. HELEN DENSMORE,
An American advocate of Mrs. Maybrick’s innocence.
After a two hours’ drive we arrived at Walton Jail, in the suburbs of Liverpool. I shuddered as I looked at the tall, gloomy building. A bell was ringing, and the big iron gates swung back and allowed us to pass in. I was received by the governor and immediately led away by a female warder. We crossed a small courtyard and stopped at a door which she unlocked and relocked. Then we passed down a narrow passage to a door that led into a dark, gloomy room termed the “Reception.” A bench ran along each side, a bare wooden table stood in the middle, a weighing-machine by the door, with a foot measure beside it. A female warder asked me to give up any valuables in my possession. These consisted of a watch, two diamond rings, and a brooch. They were entered in a book. Then I was asked to stand upon the weighing-machine, and my weight was duly noted. These formalities completed, I was led through a building into a cell especially set apart for sick prisoners. The escort locked me in, and, utterly exhausted, stricken with a sense of horror and degradation, I sank upon the stone floor, reiterating, until consciousness left me, “Oh, my God, help me—help me!”
Alone
When I opened my eyes I was in bed and alone. I gazed around. At the bedside was a chair with a china cup containing milk, and a plate of bread upon it. The cell was bare. The light struggled in dimly through a dirty, barred window. The stillness was appalling, and I felt benumbed—a sense of terrible oppression weighed me down. If only I could hear once more the sound of a friendly voice! If only some one would tell whose diabolical mind had conceived and directed suspicion against me!
I remained in the cell three days, when my lawyer visited me. He arranged that I was to have a room especially set apart for prisoners awaiting trial who can afford to pay five shillings ($1.25) weekly, for the additional comfort of a table, an arm-chair, and a wash-stand. Had I not been able to do so I should have been consigned to an ordinary prison cell, and my diet would have been the same as that of convicted prisoners. Instead, my food was sent from a hotel outside. I was locked in this room for twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four. The only time I was permitted to leave it was for chapel in the morning and an hour’s exercise in the afternoon in the prison yard. The stillness, unbroken by any sound from the outside world, got on my nerves, and I wanted to scream, if only to hear my own voice. The unnatural confinement, without any one to speak to, was torture. The governor, the doctor, and the chaplain, it is true, came around every morning, but their visits were of such short duration, and so formal in their nature, that it was impossible to derive much relief from conversation with them.